The Poet (Samantha Jazz)

Lang just grunts. That’s his way. He saves the explosions for less opportune times, like crime scenes that require decorum that he forgets exists.

I scan the file and find a big gap in our investigation that needs to be fixed. I make a few more calls and arrange to have patrol collect the one thing that Roberts seems to have missed early on: a request for voluntary DNA from everyone at the poetry reading.

“Roberts didn’t collect that DNA, huh?” Lang asks when I finally put my phone away. “Seems like a first step to me.”

“Yes, it is,” I confirm. “And no, he didn’t. I’m not sure how he bypassed such an important step.”

“Maybe he didn’t do that great of a job, after all. Maybe something had him distracted, like dirty detective work.”

He’s back to connecting him to my father, and I’m not going to go there right now. “I don’t know what’s going on with Roberts, but it doesn’t add up.”

“Are you suggesting he’s our killer? Because he’s a damn cop, Jazz.”

“Who you just suggested was dirty.”

“Dirty is one thing. A monster is another. We’re looking for a professor anyway. You said so yourself.”

“Actually, Roberts said so.”

“It’s not Roberts,” he snaps.

“We’ll let the evidence lead us to our killer. Which means we need those samples to match them to the DNA on the glasses. And once we find this professor, which we will, we need to be able to prove he was at the event, which means isolating his DNA.”

“Now, it’s handled. And he’s still missing.” On that note, Lang pulls us into the driveway of a small, brown, brick house that I assume to be Roberts’s home. I shove the file next to the seat. “Why am I nervous?” I ask without reaching for the door.

“Because you’re a girl,” he says, a joke he tells just because I hate it. Yes, partners are a bit like siblings, or so I hear. I’ve never had a sibling. Just a man I call Lang because he hates it. “And,” he adds, “because Roberts is in trouble. It’s in the air.” He pops his door open and gets out of the car.

I follow him, my bag at my hip filled with investigative tools that I should have left in the car. This isn’t a crime scene, but it’s like my gut is telling me that I’ll need it. We’re almost to the door when my cell phone rings in my jacket pocket. I snag it, hoping it’s the captain with an update on Roberts, only to find my mother’s name on the caller ID. First time today, which is a miracle considering she’s called me three times a day since I returned to work. With a stab of guilt, I decline the call, but already she’s stirred a flashback to the night my father was murdered—him standing in front of me, while I confronted him over his many sins to the badge. Him telling me that I was a “judgmental know-it-all bitch.” That was the last thing he’d said to me ever in this lifetime. A second later, a gunshot had cracked and he’d fallen on top of me.

Forcefully, I shake off the memory and shove my phone back into my purse. I know my mother’s grieving and scared. I also know that if we’d caught the ex-con who killed my father, she’d be at least a little less clingy. But he had the chance to kill me. He didn’t. He isn’t coming back to do the job now, either. And if I let her make me afraid, I might make a stupid mistake and end up dead, too.

We step under an overhang in front of the house and Lang knocks on Roberts’s door. I ring the bell. That’s us, brawn and finesse. Neither method works. The door doesn’t open. Lang tests the knob and it turns, then he gives me a sideways look. I shove back my jacket and rest my hand on my weapon, giving him a nod. He turns the knob, pulls his weapon, and uses his foot to shove the door open. Heat rushes out into the already-suffocating heat. A look groans between us that says it all. There’s nothing worse than entering a Texas house with no air conditioning, except entering a Texas house with no air conditioning that has a dead body inside. The good news: so far, we’re odor free.

Lang inclines his chin, and a second later, he’s slicing through the heat. His big body bursts into the inferno that is the air-conditioning-free house, with me on his heels. We halt in a living area and Lang gives a curse at what we find. The room is empty, completely barren of furnishings, Roberts’s departure quick and complete. Procedure, and our many years working together, kicks in and we automatically split up, searching the small house. We end our fruitless hunt for Roberts outside in the heat, where it’s cooler than inside in the heat.